How to love without attachment: Letting romantic relationships go

We parted ways, and for the first time in my adult life, I experienced a happy ending through an ending.

Not like pop-the-cork-off-the-champagne-bottle happy. There was disappointment and other normal human emotions to process – but It was the most sane, adult, and loving breakup I’ve ever had.

No long, drawn out, back-and-forth. No hysteria. Just respect and honesty.

When we learn how to love without attachment, it becomes easier to see and let go of the relationships that can’t last forever without making it about us.

As my Buddhist friend likes to say to me, “Megyn the success of a relationship has nothing to do with the length of time that you are in the relationship, but whether or not you and the other person can leave each other better human beings”

This sounds really evolved, selfless, and new-agey right? But what if you are really looking for love? The forever kind?

A quick lesson in love today. Just a little reminder.

*The purest form of love, the only kind I’m interested in, is eternal; love never dies.

*No one can love you, cherish you, or adore you enough if you aren’t already a resource of these things from within. Anything else is neediness. And the relationships we cultivate from a self love deficit will always be an opportunity for us to evaluate and choose how to love ourselves more.

*You can only give, receive, and feel loved to the extent that you able to give, receive, and feel love from deep inside of yourself.

*And sometimes – Love isn’t enough.

So… what if we stopped looking for love, and instead started looking for deep, soulful resonance?

What if we could love, love unconditionally, wholeheartedly, purely, and unselfishly without being attached? Could relationships work?

Would they have the same meaning? The same depth? The same purity, intensity, and quality without having to have it our way? Without clinging out of fear that this will be the last one that will ever work out?

Ummm, Yes! BIG YES!

When we deeply sense our own inherent value and are steeped in our own nourishment, we come into union awake with our eyes, ears and heart open which is how we cultivate relationships of great harmony, of great growth, and of great work. Yes, even when they don’t work out.

When two people are whole and fully resourced from within, they can emit love without taking, shrinking, neediness, or grasping.

Whether or not someone loves us back is irrelevant. It does not diminish what we already have.

This is not to say that breakups are supposed to be painless. There will always be emotions and feelings to process around lost connection, missing a companion, and unfulfilled dreams.

Without judgment and with total self-compassion, you can responsibly honor your own grieving process, but in the end, you will not feel a lack of love or take another person’s lack of love personally.

Ideally, relationship is a dance; a joyful, exciting, journey of discovery; an opportunity for love to fertilize two souls within a container (the relationship) that then allows two people to grow and expand, becoming stronger and more illuminated than they were before.

Sometimes, unfortunately, how much each person is able to expand is limited.

When we get caught in the trap of forcing “this one to be it” is when we can’t see that one, or both people in the relationship is not thriving in the container.

How long the other person is able to meet you where you are at is outside of your power.

Each soul has their own timeline, their own lessons, and their own path. There is absolutely nothing you can do, say, or become to push, pull or force another person’s truth to match up with yours.

The truth of another person’s path will reveal itself in layers with ease and clarity if you aren’t blinded by the need to make love fit into a box.

To love another is to understand, honor, and acknowledge that if another person’s happiness is in pursuing their own truth and happiness outside of relationship with you, then to truly love them is to set them free and sometimes to set yourself free too.

Your only responsibility is to cultivate and go deeper into choosing more love and what that means for you without compromising your values or your divine worth.

But what about the “happy ending?”

This is the great dilemma of romantic love: “Tell me I won’t get hurt”, “Tell me this is the one”, “Make it last forever… and. make. it. magical.”

Ironically, where love exists, in it’s purest form, is not strictly born out of the happily ever after story.

Relationships work best when we see them as gifts in our lives and opportunities to grow as opposed to things that we own, need to manage or have to have until ‘death do us part.’

Essential to any successful relationship is a deep knowing of oneself to be complete outside of union with another.

In essence, we have to be connected to our own light.

If we fall short in any of those areas, our identity will project our stuff, our voids, our need to be needed, loved, rescued, and valued onto another person.

We won’t be able to show up in relationship authentically or fully seeing another person for who they are. We will project fantasies, be unable to discern what and what not they are capable of giving, and where we are not allowing a person to be an individual with their own values, path, and soul lessons.

The second we start looking at something or someone else as the source of our power: our validity, our joy, our self esteem; the second we need someone to be something different to make us happy – we forget what our truth and standards are; we let someone else hijack our self-esteem; we cling, project and actually cut ourselves off from the healthy flow of giving and receiving love that the Universe calls on us to experience.

When Love is at its fullest it is not linear, rigid or able to be contained. It’s something that is so deep within us, that it naturally overflows and finds resonance in our life.

Okay, okay – I know, “get down off your eternal love high horse, talk to me like I’m human.”

Falling in love can be a helluva drug: the chemicals, the excitement, the future possibilities — Intoxicating.

Connection and partnership are beautiful places for growth, for deeper connection, to witness our own love in action, for gateways into the next stage of our EVOLution.

But when we use (consciously or unconsciously) relationships as a supplement to the one we don’t have with ourselves, or we sacrifice our integrity at the expense of staying in a partnership, we are setting ourselves up for chaos, interesting lessons, depletion and sometimes destruction – all of which can be helpful.

It’s not that there is a “right” kind of love, “right” way to date, or a correct relationship. Everyone is here for our greatest good and to move us forward if we are willing to make choices. It’s just that there are more nourishing, fulfilling, soulful ways to enter into intimate partnership.

Revolutionary new way forward: I promise to myself, when I enter into intimate relationship, instead of looking for “the one”, trying to figure it all out, retracting in fear of getting hurt – I am open to allowing deep, soulful, resonance to be my new love standard. I’m saying yes to reciprocal love, authentic kindness and respect – for as long as we both are growing.

I feel and receive love more deeply, openly, and honestly than I ever did before. I have loved with more purity and acceptance from afar than I ever used to in relationship. I have let many go in the name of loving myself more, and in turn have received love back — ten fold.

I also see and accept people in their wholeness: in their complete messy humanity, in their glory, in their vulnerabilities, in their gifts, in their limitations, because I don’t need them to be anything other than what they are.

This is our power. From here we make choices. We can discern: More of the same? or do I wish to create something different? From here we unconditionally love without attachment and allow love to unfold her own miracles instead of forcing our own will.

What is born out of love, can only lead to more love.

When we can love freely and allow souls to come and go as need be, it replaces blindness, neediness, and if-then-love with bountiful, sacred spaces for free-flowing growth, nourishment, and kindness which in the end feels more abundant, peaceful and nourishing.

What matters most to me in relationship now is: Did I love them with purity, for who they were?Am I a better person after the experience? Did I honor their humanity and mine with honesty, respect, and kindness? Did I stay true to me? And hopefully, did I leave the other person well?

Ultimately, you are the one you’ve been waiting for.

Everything else is just Grace; a gift; a cosmic high five.

My deepest wish for all of you is that as you grow and EVOLve deeper into your own love; as your light shines brighter, that the love that beams back to you shines brighter too.

Postscript:It’s taken me over two months to write this. I never thought that writing about something like intimate love would make me feel so vulnerable and exposed.

I recognize that love and relationship is a touchy subject because we are all at different stages in our own EVOLution (that’s love backward by the way) and therefor we have varying degrees of tolerance for someone else telling us what they believe love to be.

After having experienced the embodiment of all the principles I preach: self-love, letting go, staying present, taking nothing personally and allowing other souls their own path, I can not believe that what I used to experience in relationship I believed was love at all.

I believe in love, even the ‘until death do we part’ kind and I would never advocate running, ejecting or escaping from partnership just because the “going gets tough.” That is a very personal decision and unique to each situation, which I can not possibly address within the scope of one article.

But, what I am proposing and advocating is an exploration into your own reasons for looking for and staying in relationship. I am inviting you to explore your own self-love gaps and look at opportunities to heal those from within, without making someone responsible for your own happiness.

I am stating that I believe that anything less than mutual respect, consideration, and kindness are not particularly loving and it is up to you to make choices that resonate with more love in your life without changing someone.

I wrote this post not with a heavy heart, but ironically, feeling more loved than I ever have before and more sure about my relationship future because for the first time in my dating life I was able to show up with a soft, open heart, without attachment; seeing another clearly, while staying honest about what was true and good for me.

+ FREE access to the private #wholehuman Facebook group

with more personal stories, guidance, and coaching.

All my love! Thank you for being here!

I respect your privacy and sanity. Unsubscribe at any time. I promise, I will still love you.

Megyn Blanchard

Truth teller, Spiritual myth buster, Inner Relationship coach

My commitment is to be as human with you as is humanly possible, over the internet while I breakdown overly simplistic, reductive, self-help, and empowerment teachings. Get exclusive love notes and for your eyes only updates, stock my Instagram, and come be a part of the most bad ass, non-new-agey, real-life, private Facebook group as I give weekly sermons on realtionships, self-love, and self-awareness.

Wow, Megyn, this is a very touching post and perhaps it’s because it was such a vulnerable one to write. I happen to be working on a post currently about soulmates and this line really resonated: “Relationships work best when we see them as gifts in our lives and
opportunities to grow as opposed to things that we own, need to manage or have to have until ‘death do us part.’ I agree and believe relationships can be challenging but a true gift if we fully embrace the experience (the good, the bad and the ugly). I was also extremely touched by this line “Ultimately, you are the one you’ve been waiting for”. It’s rarely about the other person, is it? In essence, it’s about the relationship we have with ourselves.

Krista, it means a lot that you, someone who is in healthy relationship, is touched by this. I agree, the “whole” experience is beautiful within partnership when we are fully resourced from within. I can’t wait to read your post on soul mates. And yes, there are only two relationships we have in life, the relationship with ourselves, and then the relationship we have to everything else. Reserve that beautiful spirit for all your exciting changes ahead. Until we talk again. Light and Love